Celestine Designs and Media

Communication competence refers to the knowledge of effective and appropriate communication patterns and the ability to use and adapt that knowledge in various contexts (Ralph and Deborah, 1984).  Interpersonal competency allows one to achieve their communication goals without causing the other party to lose face. Competent communicators get their messages across as they intended; misunderstandings rarely occur. The following are components of communication competence. Empathy. It refers to sharing the feeling of your audience. President Obama displayed this component as he was addressing the community of Orlando when he told them “Today, the vice president and I, on behalf of the American people, that our hearts are broken, too, but we stand with you and that we are here for you, and that we are remembering those who you loved so deeply.”  Adaptability. This refers to the ability to adapt to a communicative environment. When President Obama addressed youth during his visit t...

Every organisation is involved in public relations. However, in higher institutions of learning, PR has a critical role to play. Musepa(2003) advances that PR enables a college to maintain a good relationship with its interest groups (publics).  According to Jefkins (1998), employees and customers such as students form key publics of institutions of higher learning. However, Musepa (2003), argues that PR is especially important when dealing with students because they(students) constitute the largest interest group.  In order to ensure that effective mutual understanding exists between an organisation and its external publics, firstly, the relationship among all internal publics is supposed to be very cordial, Farrant (1980). However, this is not always the case. Ghose (1989) observes that “the relationship among members of certain departments, among the heads of certain departments, and at times between certain subordinate members and their departmental supervisors is quite di...