Real Communication An Introduction

The water had receded within hours, but the isolation was just

beginning. When Hurricane Sandy sent a fourteen-foot storm surge barreling

across New York City’s tiny Rockaway peninsula, homes and cars were destroyed

and the community of 130,000 was left without power, phones, or transportation.

Those lucky enough to charge their phones with a generator found signals were

fleeting for the first week or so; one might manage to get one text or tweet out

before the connection was gone. Radio became the only news outlet, although the

mayor’s daily briefings proved difficult to catch for people with a lot of cleanup

work to do. Nonetheless, news that the New York Marathon, scheduled for the

following weekend, would go on as planned sent locals reeling, wondering if any-

one on the mainland even knew how bad things were (Boyle, 2012).

But elsewhere, social networks were buzzing. Surfers from the mainland

converged on the Facebook page of the local surf club, figured out what was

needed, and began gathering supplies and arranging car pools to get volunteers

to the scene (Tockett, 2012). The very networks that organized protests of the

financial sector the year before became vital information hubs as well: occupy

Wall Street had become Occupy Sandy (Feuer, 2012). Churches, civic groups,

schools, and everyday citizens showed up en masse to help their fellow New

Yorkers. And when the city finally did cancel the marathon, runners who had

trained all year for the event joined the volunteer efforts (Macur & Eder, 2012).

With cold weather bearing down, weary neighbors found themselves

gathering—around small bonfires on the street, in homes with working

generators, and around the trucks that delivered warm meals. Eventually,

comfort tents popped up, providing residents with information, food, water,

in-person support—and a place to charge those cell phones.

chapter

Communication:

Essential Human

Behavior

1

We Must

Communicate:

The Functional

Perspective

How We

Communicate

Communicating

Competently

Modeling

Communication

The Study of

Communication

3

IN THIS CHAPTER