Getting The Message Across Listening

Getting the Message Across
DISCUSSION TOPICS
1.Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds over the last few decades, but has
it really made our lives easier? The downside of the technological revolution (the
Internet, mobile phones, computers).
2.To what extent do you rely on technologies? In what way can the internet be
detrimental to one’s wellbeing?
3.Have you ever experienced Zoom fatigue and anxiety? How do you cope with it?
4.Do you agree that the media pay too much attention to the darker side of life? To
what extent can the media be held responsible for society’s ills (sensationalism
negative reporting, advertising)?
5. Have you ever found yourself endlessly scrolling through bad news, reading one
tragic story after another? Do you consider yourself to be addicted to bad news?
Why, do you think, has doomscrolling become increasingly common today?
Assignment 1 Listening
1.In my view modern technology has certainly ………………… ……
communication and made things a lot more convenient.
2.As far as mobile phones are concerned, I think they spread so quickly from a
small elite to people from all kinds of …………………… and age groups that they
became a great equalizer in …………. of ……………… to immediate
communication.
3.Whereas in the past people would have tended to wait until they were face to
face with the person concerned, now they will use their mobile phones at the
………… of a …………... .
4.Then there is text messaging, which seems to have become the main …….……
of communication among schoolchildren.
5.I can’t really say the same about e-mail because you have to be ……….. ……
enough to own a computer.
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6.On the other hand, there are always internet cafes where you can access mail. IT
really is a …………. to long-distance communication. It’s certainly made the
world a lot smaller.
7.Chat rooms have had the effect of creating virtual communities of people who
………………… would never have met.
8.In the real world you only talk to people in your ……………….. , and they are
likely to …………. roughly the same views as yourself, whereas in the virtual
community of the chat room you can ‘mix’ with people from all over the planet
who ………….. common ……………... of interest.
9.Well, I don’t entirely go ……….. ……. what Nick said, although I don’t hold a
widely …………………….. view.
10.With ………………… to mobile phones I wouldn’t have said that they are in
any way a social ‘equalizer’. Let’s not forget that there are still millions of people
who don’t have access to a normal phone, …….. ………. a mobile one.
11.When it comes to Internet chat rooms, I’m afraid they can create unrealistic and
unworkable relationships that may even turn ………. to be …………………, or
…………………… to the individual’s ……………. and may prevent them from
making more natural relationships within their own community.
12.I suppose we are all dependent on technology to some …………….. .
Personally I am dependent on the ……………………. telephone to keep in touch
with friends and relations, far more than e-mail because not everyone is online.
13.However, I think that most people are much more dependant than that,
especially at work. Even if someone is in the next office, you will send an e-mail
………….. ……… pick up the phone or go and speak to the person ……
…………….. .
14.Then there is the fax machine, too. The advantage it has over spoken
communication is that you can keep a ………………… of your transaction or
request, which is very useful.
15.Yes, alright. But communication for the ordinary person will always be face to
face by …………………….., because there is personal contact, and
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………………… signals like body language can be an ………………………. of
how a person might feel about what you are saying.
Assignment 2
I really don’t think that the media can be held responsible for what is wrong with
our society, after al it of all of our ______________________________ . A good
deal of __________________________ is given to negative events at the expense
of the positive; that is, selection is often made on the basis of negativity, regardless
of how insignificant an event may actually be in the whole _______________ of
life. So, the national news will always __________________ an accident in a
remote area, or the news of mugging on the city streets. This does inevitably
___________________ people’s view of the world around them, and you find
that, after a while, some more ____________________ people become convinced
that the society they live in is an extremely dangerous place and they become very
frightened.
Sensationalist ________________________ of the news items is another aspect of

this, and is the norm in many parts of the world. Again, the question is not so much
of untruths being told, these events do happen, but they are ________________ out
of all proportion and give the public a ___________________ view of society.
This is clear not only in the importance given to horrific accidents and
____________________ and the way these are __________________ on, but also
in the way celebrities and their lives are given the same status as important
political and economic events. The effect is to ______________________ the
latter, thus the public’s attention is _________________________ from issues of
far more importance.
If the media are, in some measure, to blame for society’s ills, the main
_________________ of that blame has to fall on the advertising industry. Human
values have never been an __________________ in the hard world of advertising
and people’s __________________________ and desire for a better life are
knowingly exploited by _________________________ campaigns that employ
___________________ tactics to achieve their aims. Advertising does create
problems by raising people’s expectations to unrealistically high levels, often
leading to a sense of failure when the individual is unable to afford the goods he
sees advertised, and this can have a _________________________ social impact.

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Sensationalist ________________________ of the news items is another aspect of

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