Incremental Steps, Like the One

¶ … incremental steps, like the one taken by the health authorities, towards establishing more open and honest communication ties, China still has a long way to go before it will give up the belief that information can be controlled. Another case study that illustrates this belief is the one involving China's aviation- trading arm, China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corp or CATIC (Kahn, May 22, 1996). In 1989 this company desired to buy Mamco Manufacturing Inc., a U.S. factory that specialized in aircraft parts, particularly those of a dual-use nature.

Knowing that the U.S. government would not allow such a sale to take place due to fears of China's possible use of such parts for military purposes, CATIC attempted to secretly urge American airline manufacturer McDonnell Douglas Co. To agree towards buying output from Mamco after its ownership was taken over by the Chinese. After CATIC bought Mamco and knowledge about this sale was brought to Washington's attention, President Bush Sr. forced the Chinese to abandon the deal.

In 1993 Douglas became involved in another business scandal involving CATIC when it faced a decision over whether to sell China a factory that produced military aviation hardware, some of which were supposed to be off-limits for foreign use. The Chinese pressured Douglas into making the deal; Douglas finally acquiesced after it obtained approval from the U.S. Commerce Department under the stringent condition that such hardware be used for civilian purposes only.

It was not until much later when Douglas found out that CATIC had violated the condition by transporting the hardware to a plant specializing in military technology. Once again China was forced to give up what it bought, this time by moving the hardware to a Shanghai factory owned by Douglas. Actions such as these indicate that Chinese businesses wishing to strike lucrative deals in the U.S. try to do so secretly because they fear Washington would not approve of them due to national security concerns.

They thus try to cover up their actions despite the fact that most of the time they have been caught in the act. The fact that these businesses thrive under Chinese Communist rule shows they cherish the practice of doing things secretly. Since the days of the Cultural Revolution the Chinese government has been heavily involved with controlling the media.

Although much of its grip has been significantly relaxed today due to widespread social and economic reforms in China, the government continues to control the media, particularly when it comes to their handling of politics. As long as the media do not directly attack the Chinese Communist Party's legitimacy and policies, they are generally free to report upon whatever they deem newsworthy. In order to ensure that such attacks do not occur, the government has implemented the following controls ("Media in the People's...").

First, newspapers and magazines cannot be established without being attached to an organization sanctioned by the state. Second, journalists are threatened with fines and/or imprisonment if they dare to make unfavorable political reports. Third, the government can cause dissenting newspapers and magazines to be shut down or have their works banned. An example of government censorship is the banning of books written by Taiwanese writer Li Ao, who claimed that 96 out of approximately 100 books were not allowed into China.

Fourth, it continually reminds the media about policies that are off-limits for discussion. And finally fifth, it creates many journalists' associations in order to make sure that not a single one can become too powerful. Axley (1984) states that management experts commonly regard the conduit metaphor as being the major theory that explains organizational communication. Books and classes on management very often refer to the metaphor as the method by which students should understand organizational communication.

Due to the prevalence of this theory within management circles, many of today's managerial professionals fail to understand how miscommunications come about. According to Axley, miscommunications are very common because of the following two reasons. The first reason is that messages very often carry more than one meaning; this reveals that communicators can often unintentionally express themselves in more ways than one. The second reason is that receivers of information oftentimes understand the message according to their own interpretation of the meaning and not that of the sender's intended interpretation.

What all this implies is that unintentional meanings can be picked up by the way receivers understand the message. The conduit metaphor does not recognize that unintentional meanings are common and that receivers often form their own interpretations of the message. It assumes that as long as the sender makes sure that only the intentional meaning is clear in the message, then miscommunication will not occur. The problem with this understanding is that it causes senders to become overconfident in their ability to communicate messages.

They will assume that since they explicitly made sure that only the intentional meaning was passed along, that receivers are at fault for not objectively interpreting the message correctly. Senders will not recognize that they may be at fault for providing unintentional meanings to the message, thus causing receivers to interpret it a different way. Such miscommunications can eventually harm organizations in significant ways if not understood by theoretical methods other than that proposed by the conduit metaphor.

The limitations present within the conduit metaphor make it incapable of providing a theoretical explanation for organizational communication. A possible alternative for it rests in the theory proposed by WR Fisher, which is known as the narrative paradigm. Fisher (1984) states that narratives are not only one part of communication, as commonly believed, but serve as the basis for all forms of communication. According to this, all humans are essentially story-telling creatures that appeal to each other's reason based on their stories.

Fisher defines narration as " a theory of symbolic actions-words and/or deeds-that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create, or interpret them" (1984, p. 2). This means that since all words and deeds have sequences and meanings behind them they can all be comprised into narratives, thus showing that all forms of communication is essentially story-telling. After establishing the notion that all humans are story-tellers, Fisher explains that some stories are clearly better than others in terms of being coherent and "ringing true" with audiences.

They are thus judged for narrative rationality based on the following two criteria. The first criterion is that stories are examined for narrative probability. This means that the story has to make sense in that it should contain coherence and consistency, have no contradictions within it, and be capable of being compared and contrasted with prior and competing stories. The second criterion is that stories have to possess narrative fidelity.

This means that the story has to share the same beliefs and experiences as its listeners, making it capable of "ringing true" with them (Preston). Fisher goes on to state that when it comes to decision-making, humans use the basis of "good reasons" in order to make proper choices. In the context of the narrative paradigm, good reasons are determined by such social factors as history, biography, culture and character. Good reasons can vary in form based on different communication genres, media, and situations.

Listeners are expected to use the logic of good reason as a way of testing the narrative fidelity of a story. The notion behind this is that the story's presentation of "facts, values, self and society" has to be examined in order to determine whether it rings true to listeners (Fisher, 1984, p. 16). This constant decision-making characterizes the world, according to Fisher, as being a set of stories that humans must choose from in order to continually recreate their lives.

As an example of demonstrating how narrative paradigm is to be viewed, Fisher uses Hitler's book Mein Kampf to perform this. Although the book possesses narrative probability, in terms of having a story with a coherent structure, it is still essentially a bad story. This is because it misrepresents certain ideas that all of humanity share pertaining to peace, justice, and equality. Thus it fails to possess narrative fidelity because it cannot be related to the beliefs and experiences shared by most of humanity regarding certain fundamental ideas.

In contrast to this Fisher illustrates that The Epic of Gilgamesh is a story that can connect with people through the ages. This is because it not only possesses narrative probability but also fidelity; this is due to the fact that the story helps readers relate to certain ideas. Such ideas include the notion that one's life is at its best when one loves and is loved by another, that death is a reality, and that one attains maturity by accepting that reality.

An opposing viewpoint to the narrative paradigm is what Fisher termed the rational world paradigm. This viewpoint presupposes that human beings are essentially rational creatures who make decisions based on logic and arguments. Arguments are conducted according to the situations they occur at; such situations could take place at the legal, scientific, and legislative levels among others. The level of subject matter knowledge and argumentative ability an individual involved in an argument possesses determine rationality.

Finally, the rational world paradigm presupposes that the world is composed of logical puzzles that human beings solve through rational analysis. As can be seen both paradigms offer highly differing presuppositions over what constitutes human beings and how they communicate among one another. Although Fisher has not explicitly mentioned it, the conduit metaphor can be said to share certain similarities with the rational world paradigm. The conduit metaphor stresses that thoughts and feelings are transferred via language between individuals.

This entails that senders of information put their thoughts and feelings into words, which have to then be extracted out by receivers using objective interpretation (Reddy, 1979). The metaphor's assumption that receivers will be objective while interpreting the message is similar to the rational world paradigm's assumption that individuals will objectively examine how well an argument was presented in terms of knowledge and ability before coming to understand its rationality.

The metaphor makes it conditional for senders of information to make sure their messages contain the intentional meaning behind them; any unintentional meanings are considered to be exceptions that occurred through the fault of the sender (Axley, 1984). Likewise the rational world paradigm makes it conditional upon communicators to make sure their argument is clear by conducting it according to the speaking situation one is involved in.

Due to similarities such as these, it can be understood that both presuppose that humans are essentially rational beings who communicate clearly and effectively with each other due to their objective nature. Fisher compares and contrasts the narrative paradigm with the rational world paradigm (which by extension can be applied to the conduit metaphor) in the following way. He notes that the rational world paradigm assumes that humans have to be educated into understanding any form of communication from a rational perspective.

This means that they have to be taught not only about the subject matters their arguments are based upon but also about the ways one can make proper arguments. According to Fisher this means that the rational world paradigm requires that only well-educated and qualified individuals of society be involved in this endeavor. The audience, which means here the rest of society, has to be educated and qualified enough to understand what the experts have to say about certain matters.

Thus the rational world paradigm calls for certain members of society to become experts in the various fields of knowledge available so that only they can act as communicators of information. This assumption can apply to the conduit metaphor, in that the experts can be thought of as the communicators of information and the rest of society is the audience to whom this information is sent towards.

Communicators have to use their knowledge and expertise towards finding the right words to put the information in and the audience has to knowledgeable enough to objectively interpret what the information is about. Fisher contrasts this assumption with the one made by the narrative paradigm, which assumes all humans possess the ability to form stories about their lives, which they would refer to constantly when communicating with others.

This means that unlike the rational world perspective, which requires that humans have to learn how to communicate properly, the narrative perspective states that all humans are already born with the ability to communicate. Thus, the narrative perspective does not require that only experts can act as communicators of information. The audience, according to the narrative perspective, can be any member of society who has the ability to understand the information according to the logic of good reasons.

Using this logic means that based upon reasons, which are determined by the history, biography, culture, and character of the audience, receivers of information can interpret the information according to what they believe it is. This is unlike the way the rational world perspective requires that the audience has to understand the information based only on rationality, which is determined by the level of knowledge that they possess, and that they have to interpret the information only one way, which is the way intended by communicators.

According to this then, the narrative paradigm can be deemed as being the more human approach towards communication, because it entails that all humans are capable of communicating despite the level of knowledge they possess. The rational world paradigm, or by extension the conduit metaphor, is more of a mechanistic approach that is best suited for communications occurring within specialized areas of knowledge of which expert opinion is required.

The case involving Rupert Murdoch's attempt to break into the Chinese media market can serve as a good demonstration of how narrative paradigm works in the real world (McGregor, Oct. 17, 2005). Initially Murdoch was unable to be allowed access into China's media market because of a speech he made in London four years earlier, in which he claimed that advances in communications technology would be threatening for authoritarian regimes everywhere.

Even though he was referring to the government of Russia in his speech, the Chinese believed that the speech also applied to.