Knowing Your Audience

Communication can be sent and received in different forms. In the case of the Chilean miners communication was important to everyone involved. The different roles and people who played a major part in communicating this incident in different countries was an important task. A big challenge was to determine how the families would communicate with the trapped miners. Also during this tragedy the employer would have to send messages to his or her employees regarding this incident.

Some considerations to remember given the different roles and the audience are those of the company’s senior corporate management, the miners and their families, and the different nationalities and language barriers. Communication is key, not only in trying to contact the miners trapped but also conveying information to the grieving family and friends and to the public (Hanks, 2010). The reporters have to be considerate of the families because of the severity of the situation by not providing too much information and showing images that could be gruesome and inappropriate. Also the media outlets have to be aware of the language barriers during the broadcasting and possibly have an interpreter or a caption at the bottom of the television so that the viewers can follow along.

The families would need to receive messages regarding this incident about the trapped miners so that they will know what is going on with their trapped family members. Communication is very important to these families just in case there are certain arrangements that need to be made in the event the miners do not make it out. An effective way communication was used in this situation was by reassuring the families that the miners were doing satisfactory they were allowed to talk with them on a two way radio and telephone (Aljazeera.net, 2010). The families were also allowed to write letters and have brief video chats. On the other hand a series of unsound decision-making and miscommunication of a devastating situation, such as this by giving the wrong information to the families regarding the miners it would give the families false hopes and a sense that things are looking optimistic. There is no way effective communication can be conveyed when garbled communication cannot be properly interpreted.

Communication within an organization is very important and can never be taken for granted. Common methods of communications used in the corporate office and at the mine sights are verbal, telephone,