Chapter 8

       This chapter was a little hard to follow. The parts I was able to pull information from were those that included examples. I'm not sure if it was me or the readings, but we weren't seeing eye to eye at all. I was able to pull the main ideas from the chapter and the definitions of organizational communication, dwelling place, organizations and institutions, and community of memory within organizations.
       The chapter defined organizational communication as, "practices that announce how formal and informal structures of events and persons in a given organization interrelate to accomplish a purpose." To put it simply the things that need to be done to complete our tasks. The definition the chapter gives on dwelling place seemed vague, but the example it uses gives the necessary information to infer a good definition. Its defied as the type of communicative home a given organization invites by its communicative practice. Then the chapter compares dwelling place in a students life. The main idea of dwelling place is that in every organization be it fraternity, sorority, activist groups, etc its up to us to choose which one best suits us.
      Organizations and institutions  were defined as entities that work together to form gestalt identity. This definition is a pretty concise one, which could have been stretched out more. They gave good examples showing how they work together. For example the chapter stated credit unions, banks, and savings and loans can all be seen as organizations, but they all fall under the institution of financial services. This is a unique way of looking at it, most people wouldn't see it in this way or at least wouldn't be able to distinguish between the two because the terms are almost synonymous.
      Community of memory within organizations was defined as a sense of organizational conscience, retaining what a given organization deems as good. In my opinion I think the community of memory is just a basic idea as to whats right, things that have worked and things that have not, which set a guideline for the organization to go by. The chapter makes it clear that in the community of memory within an organization definition everyone doesn't see eye to eye its subjective to an extent. But thats just my opinion anyone feel free to tell me their views on it, because I felt this chapter was a little harder to understand.