The settings of communication may be defined as the physical surrounding of a communication event which may be made up of the location where the communication occurs, environmental conditions, time of the day, or day of the week, as well as proximity of the communicators (Alberts, Nakayama, & Martin 2007).
What is critical regarding the setting is to know the audience and understand what they need to hear and how they need to receive information. The process of communication accounts for what happens between the source of message and the recipient, the skills employed in giving and receiving information, and conveying our ideas and opinions with those around us. The methods of communication involves the verbal (i.e., sounds, language, and tone of voice); the aural (i.e., listening and hearing; non-verbal (i.e., facial expressions, body language, and posture; the written (i.e., letters, memos, journals, emails, blogs, and text messages; and the visual (i.e., signs, symbols, illustrations, and pictures). Tools in communication include all that we use in both communicating with others and interpreting the information received from others. They range from language in all its forms, from tone of voice, to performing, re-enacting, television, storytelling, telephone, cell phones, movie, radio, photographs, cartoon, cyberspace, digital and social platforms, and the Internet.
Government Setting
The government deals with citizens and particularly deliver social and public services that ensure peaceful and orderly living. This being the essence of government, the purpose of communication becomes more of public to government and government to public. The government communicates to inform the public about national plans, public services, security situation, opportunities, and to give general direction to people as a nation. In this sense, the government setting draws on a variety of communication methods and tools depending on the subject and intent. They have highly confidential information and the information that is meant to be accessible to all members of the public. Traditionally, the government relied on mass media to disseminate public information and propaganda. With the emergence of new media, the government has also incorporated much of new technological tools. It is more common than less to find even local government units maintaining a website and communicating with their communities and general public using social media. For example, class and work suspensions during typhoons and storms in the Philippines are posted through social networking sites and informed through texts, in addition to traditional radio and TV announcements.
Private Sectors Setting
The private sector refers to the business community, the people who are involved in the delivery of public services that include job creation and employment provision but are not the government. Essentially, this sector exists for profit. For this broad description of their existence, communication for them is largely advertisement, to inform the public, individuals, groups, and communities about available goods and services for sale. On the other hand, they need information from the public to understand the demand they have to supply. As the private sector engages with the public, they want to remain relevant, profitable, and accepted. Therefore, the concept of corporte social responsibility (CSR) is important to foster the goal of maintaining a positive public perception.
Civil Society Setting
This sector of society sees itself as the “third force.” It comes to complement government and business action. It includes various groups of non-government organizations, charities, foundations, people’s organizations, and other pressure groups that exist to advocate the causes of social justice on behalf of the marginalized sectors, disenfranchised, minorities, and even on behalf of biodiversity. They do not exist to make a profit or to serve as a government but they do perform a number of functions that belong to the government. In many cases, they also engage in business to raise funds needed to respond to problems affecting the represented sector or issue. Communication in this sense is defined by the mission and actions chosen by the civil society. They can draw almost all forms of tools available in communication. To highlight issues, they do produce documentaries and even inspire movies. They are using new and social media to bring their case to a wide audience possible and effectively.
School Setting
Schools are educational and social institutions. Their participation in communication is to deliver educational goods to the public and engage communities in agenda setting regarding educational goals and means. Communication in school setting tends to be very formal and academic. However, the emergence of new media has transformed communication in schools to include new forms of communities cutting across schools to create communities of learners that come together in pursuit of learning beyond the confines of physical schools they belong to. There is more exchange of information and documents among students, and traditional group work has become virtual teamwork, where students learn together and accomplish given tasks without physically coming together.
Schools can announce enrolment dates and students can enroll in their chosen schools without even physically going to the campus. Ultimately, this has led to the shrinking of physical campus and into global campus in education and school management. There is more student-to-student and student-to-teacher direct communication than at any time in history. Teaching and learning pedagogies are also affected to fever a highly personalized and learner-centered style.
Community Setting
The community is where all sectors interact: government, business, civil society, and just about all individuals and groups. In general, communication with communities has tended to favor a one-directional pattern of mass media. Sectors of a community announce their offering to the wider community, and government agencies would also inform communities in this fashion regarding what they want the community to know. 134t there is also within community, individual-to-individual, group-to-group, and group to general environment communication. Various tools and methods are appropriately drawn to achieve community setting communication goals. On this level, a face-to-face communication and tarpaulin as well as graffiti are very common.
