Contextual Use of Intrapersonal Communication
Introduction
Communication is a broad field which necessitates specification and comprehensiveness since the address and message to audiences is not constant. Different audience needs have to be addressed in any types of communication. Wood (2004) asserts that communication varies in context and the end goals of the communicator. However, the basic communication process involves the passage of information from a sender to a receiver through a medium. Perception, comprehension, and engagement with other communication cues such as gestures, verbal and literal devices among others are skills that all involved should exhibit in their contextual communication situation. Communication determines human relationships with themselves and with others, and objects around them through specific communication context. One mode of explicating this relationship with communication is through intrapersonal communication. This is the connection to the inner-self of an individual through internal thought-process. Channels that exhibit intrapersonal communication include film, such as Limitless (2011), which through fictional representation, depicts how an individual is a product of the intrapersonal communication process through specific communication concepts. This presentation examines the effectiveness of intrapersonal communication use and its terminologies to communicate the underlying thematic message in the film Limitless (2011).
Film Summary
Limitless (2011) features the life of writer, Eddie, turned business mogul through the use of a performance-enhancing drug offered by a friend following a series of writing obstacles in the literature sector. Through his tribulations as a writer of trying to succeed in New York, he comes across his old friend that introduces a mysterious pill which would help him unlock his potential. He ingests the drug and is able to not only finish his book, but also venture into other field such as finances and entrepreneurship. However, he becomes so addicted to the drug, that he gets deeply involved in retrieving any pills from anywhere irrespective of the outcome. Due to the complexities of the drug in terms of health consequences and external dangers, Eddie uses his influential status to become a government official to control the production, re-engineering and distribution of the pills.
Intrapersonal Communication Concepts in Context
Self-disclosure
Self-disclosure is a communicative process where an individual discloses information about him or herself to others. Wood further claims that in self-disclosure individual express intricate experiences; “private hopes and fears, intimate feelings, and personal experiences, perceptions and goals” (Wood, 2013, p. 188). Forgas on the other hand, classifies self-disclosure as “an essential requirement for mental health” (Forgas, 2010, p. 1). The descriptive of these personal components is determined by how an individual explicates his or her self-concepts. Wood postulates that self-disclosure process vary on their context, breadth and depth of the information being let out by an individual. It requires intimacy, in order for one to open up on sensitive things such as personal failures. Connection to intimacy denotes the affective influence of the content being disclosed and its reception to the external environment, and impact …