When Silence is communication.......
I cannot fully recall how the debate started but all I can remember is that we were having a debate about the communicative power of silence. I found the debate intellectually stimulating and decided to on my own learn a few facts about silence and communication. Of course I had to try and see how it links to my two pet areas of preoccupation –politics and internal organisational communication. Meaningful silence as advanced by Johannsen (1974) and Jaworski (1993) is where thought processes are involved and the hearer of the message intentionally withholds a response to the speaker. The speaker is left to use his/her own means to find out the response which more often is gotten from the nonverbal cues. Now, the 2017 general elections are just around the corner. Aspirants and incumbents in equal measure are running like headless chicken in early campaigns earnestly trying to convince voters that they are the best choices. For incumbents, anything that seems to oppose or spea...