Communication Clinic of IUST: A definitive path for J. Dewey’s Great Community and H.Mead’s Ideal Society
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Communication Clinic of IUST: A definitive path for J. Dewey’s Great Community and H.Mead’s Ideal Society

The aim of the clinic is to provide a secure, safe and welcoming space for students from all over the valley

Post by on Monday, December 27, 2021

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 Communication has the power to broaden the horizons of human beings in relation to their evolving societal and psychological tribulations. It has the power to solve key problems by just communicating with the people in order to achieve better results. The term ‘Communication’ not only involves the exchange of messages but alsothe panorama of social psychiatry, social psychology, philosophical imperatives and the list goes on.

Intrapersonal and interpersonal communications play a mandatory role in achieving the objectives of communication determinism.

There is a huge divergence between social psychology and individual psychology, but communication holds the power to intertwine them. However, the binding agent is semiotics (language of signs and symbols).Communication mirrors a person’s motives, experiences, and core values.It is noteworthy that communication is a vital matter to understand behaviorism. Intrapersonal communication stems from our consciousness or gut instincts by which we regulate our actions and their possible outcomes.

It has been observed that communication difficulties are strongly associated with the behavioral problems, thus, communication has a direct link with psychology of thoughts and their actions. Royal college of speech and language therapists, UK, reiterated this in one of their factsheets titled, ‘Understanding the links between communication and behavior.’ The factsheet highlights that, ‘81% of children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) have significant unidentified communication needs. Children with persistent and severe conduct problems are about three times more likely to have low verbal ability than children with low risk of conduct problems.’ From the data of the factsheet, it is quite evident that we need a communication clinic to adequately address the communication needs of children and students.

With this notion in mind, the department of Journalism and Mass communication, Islamic University of Science and Technology Awantipora, under the leadership of Dr Mujeeb Liyakat is bringing forth a ‘Communication Clinic.’ The vision of this ‘Communication Clinic’ is in line with Dewey’s theory of ‘the great community.’ The aim of the clinic is to provide a secure, safe and welcoming space for students from all over the valley. With the purpose of addressing vulnerabilities, expressing their views and expanding collective consciousness, this clinic will conceive, foster and support various communication activities in congruence with the vision. The community radio of the university can be positively leveraged to propagate the ideas, thoughts, observations and experiences of the students. This will help the society at large, paving a way for ‘Dewey’s Great community.’


Dr Mujeeb Liyakat (HOD, DJMC) is well versed in hundreds of theories of communication. He wants to utilize this information in developing ideal habits in students that could assist them in overcoming obstacles by means of communication, in turn fostering a process of critical thinking in them. Due to Post-Modernism and Neo-capitalism, our society is experiencing moral panic which is causing social order to collapse. Youth is the victim of such decaying social order. Thus, an ideal society can be created to accomplish social growth that will advocate free association in various conditions to achieve the objectives of the ‘communication clinic.’

The Frankfurt school stated that due to new industrial society, ‘False Needs’ are being created to hide ‘True Needs.’ These false needs have been tampering with the values and virtues of humans. This has been diminishing their critical thinking, thereby affecting the social order and creating fear psychosis in the society.The creation of false needs gave rise to four unpalatable factors: (a) Toil (b) Aggression (c) Injustice (d) Misery.This in turn has created a world of ‘Authentic Fake.’ Thus, it is necessary to provide students the referential set up of ‘Authentic Truth’ so that Gen Zs and Millennials can come out of the world of authentic fake. The ‘Communication Clinic’ of the university has this as one of its main objectives.

Given that we are living in a COVID era, the human psyche has taken the brunt of it all. In order to help individuals in communities affected, the participants of the clinic will engage in various outreach programs to uplift the society at large. ‘Mind, Self and Society’ by Herbert Mead emphasizes that, ‘The more one could state of the processes of the individual in terms of the central nervous system, the more one would use the pattern which one found in the central nervous system to interpret conduct. What I am insisting upon is that the patterns which one finds in the central nervous system are patterns of action-not of contemplation, not of appreciationas such, but patterns of action.’ The vision of the University’s ‘Communication Clinic’ revolves around this ideology.

Empire and Communications by Harold Innis states that, ‘The concepts of time and space reflect the significance of media to civilization.’History has proven to us that, media and communication when used correctly can make or break a nation and puts a significant influence on human resource.By catering to the youth of the valley, we are catering to posterity. The communication clinic is akin to a time capsule, one that we are burying for ourselves and for posterity.

The department of Journalism and mass communication of IUST through the communication clinic aims to develop the collective consciousness of the students and help them rely on it solely. This is the university’s way of contributing to the evolving generations and plays a role of a positive catalyst in the advancement of the society at large. One can even go as far as to say that the ensuing future of the beneficiarieswill be promising.Because as Aldous Huxley in his book ‘The Art of Seeing,’ says, “Consciousness is only possible through change; change is only possible through movement.”

 

(The author is an RK columnist. He studies Doctor of Philosophy in Journalism and Mass Communication from IUST, Awantipora. He can be reached at: syedtasaduqnazmi@gmail.com)

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