Communication in Television

I chose to watch an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which is a show that my boyfriend watches regularly but I do not. When I first watched the show with the sound turned off, I could only focus on nonverbal skills and cues. I noticed facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, and body positions, which either hindered or fostered communication between the characters.

One of the main characters, Jake Peralta, seemed like he was getting in trouble by Captain Holt. Holt had a stern face and did not have any welcoming or warm facial expressions, and Peralta stopped smiling and his eyes dropped down as if he was ashamed. I assumed that Holt was reprimanding Peralta in some way or delivering bad news. They were next seated in a courtroom and Peralta looked nervous because his eyebrows were furrowed and he kept gulping. The officers on the other end of the courtroom all had stern faces and did not show much expression. I believe this is because they did not have any good news for him. The scene changed to Peralta arguing with Amy Santiago in a parking garage and they looked angry with each other. Their gestures were abrupt and they had angry looks on their faces. I assumed they were fighting about something that happened in the courtroom. However, based on their body language they also seemed comfortable with each other, and the expression on Santiago’s face demonstrated she was frustrated but that she cared about Peralta. A group of men approached them in the parking garage and had their arms by their sides. Peralta put his hands on his hips defensively and looked at the men as they sternly spoke to him. Peralta then started using hand gestures and moving his lips quickly, which looked as if he was frustrated and defending himself.

I went back to the beginning of the clip and turned the sound on to see if my assumptions were correct about the interactions between the characters. My initial assumption of Holt reprimanding Peralta was incorrect because Holt was actually giving Peralta advice and asked him to trust him. In the courtroom, Peralta looked nervous because he had taken Holt’s advice, and did not say anything to defend himself. In the parking garage scene, Peralta told Santiago that Holt’s advice was to get himself fired and that he was so frustrated he yelled in the courtroom (which must have happened “later” in that initial scene). She was shocked by the news that Holt would say something like that to Peralta and that he no longer had a job with the New York Police Department. The men who approached Peralta were from the FBI and explained to Peralta that they needed him to be fired so he could work undercover for the FBI to continue the case he was doing for the NYPD. When Peralta responded, I initially thought he was frustrated and angry because of his gestures, but he actually was telling a story to lighten the mood and said yes to working with the FBI.

This experience was enlightening because I realized many of my assumptions were incorrect. Watching the show without sound illustrated the necessity of having verbal cues in addition to the nonverbal cues. I incorrectly guessed what the characters were saying or feeling because certain nonverbal cues can apply to many different contexts (O’Hair, Wiemann, Mullin & Teven, 2015). I also believe if I were to have only listened to the show and not watched it I would have missed essential nonverbal cues. I now understand how verbal and nonverbal skills and cues work together to effectively get messages across.  

Reference

O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J. (2015). Real communication (3rd.

ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.