Background

Hey gang! This post is for an assignment in my COMMS 101 class at BYU. The task was to 1) watch a campus devotional, forum, or general conference talk of my choosing and then 2) write a blog post analyzing the speech based on some concepts we’ve discussed in class so far.

I chose the conference talk “Happy and Forever” that Elder Gong gave in October 2022 as it’s a personal favorite of mine and I’ve listened to it a bunch of times ‘cause heaven forbid I choose a new talk and accidentally learn something during a school project—that would be entirely against my principles.

So I watched “Happy and Forever”, spent a few hours doodling the cover art for this post, and promptly got so sick I slept for 48 hours straight and had to request an extension on this assignment (which got approved!! Shoutout to Dr. Callahan for being a real one).

Anyway here I am, back in the land of the living, sporting some comfy slippers and a Scrooge-esque nightgown, plying myself with enough Häagen-Dazs to finish this assignment before it finishes me.

^{_{One more aside: at the professor’s suggestion/request that we use AI to help outline our writing, I tried using ChatGPT for the first time (approximately 3:50pm 10-1-23 MDT). It was scary. The way my majority-humanities professors have talked about AI this year, I was expecting a SWAT team to shatter my window and handcuff me while newly inaugurated BYU President Reese read my Miranda rights and walked me to the Honor Code Office for a humane execution. Weirdly enough, none of those things have happened…yet.}}

Without further ado I’ll analyze “Happy and Forever”, starting with types of nonverbal communication¹:

1. Kinesics, or the way certain body movements and gestures serve as a form of nonverbal communication. I noticed Elder Gong used iconic, or illustrator gestures throughout his speech which produced an engaging effect. For example, Elder Gong placed his right hand over his heart when mentioning “our deep heart’s core,” and this motion drew my wandering attention back to Elder Gong and his message.
2. Proxemics, which refers to the use of interpersonal space in communication. Because Elder Gong is part of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the second highest leadership body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he is undoubtedly a busy man who is not easily reachable by people who lack the authority or otherwise reason to come into contact with him. Because Elder Gong’s time and attention is, for lack of a better term, a scarce commodity to millions of Church members, this video of his talk presents a rare and valuable parasocial interaction with him (i.e. a one-sided interaction, or an opportunity to get to know Elder Gong better though he is not physically present and cannot, through this video, get to know the viewer too).
3. Objectics, or the way objects can be a form of nonverbal communication. A primary example of objectics displayed by Elder Gong was the type of clothing he wore during his speech. To most Church members familiar with General Conference, his apparel was simply par for the course, but it’s worth noting that this attire says something to Elder Gong’s audience. His black pin-striped suit, white collared shirt, dusky purple tie, simple wire frame glasses, clean shaven face, and neatly combed short hairstyle express his humility, hygiene, attention to detail, and respect for those who will see him as he speaks.
4. Olfactics and Haptics, which refer to communicative functions associated with the senses of smell and touch, respectively. I grouped these two forms of nonverbal communication together because they are the least applicable to my analysis. My sense of touch was uninvolved in watching this speech, and because I didn’t attend Conference in person, I don’t know if or how any scents affected the way this talk was received. However, the inclusion of the floral arrangement in frame behind Elder Gong suggests a pleasant, natural smelling atmosphere to the viewer.

A Shorter Analysis of Verbal Communication Because it’s Low-key Less Important²:

Elder Gong’s word choice served to communicate certain ideas. For example, he addressed his audience first as “friends” and then “brothers and sisters,” suggesting that he intended his message to be received not only by members of the Church, but by those investigating the faith as well.

Another way Elder Gong engaged his audience through verbal communication was by contrasting common expectations with what he professed to be reality. His overarching message is an example of this:

He observed that our belief in experiencing a “happily ever after” is typically lost as we grow up and learn to battle various unceasing challenges, but he claims that “happy and forever” are not mutually exclusive ideas and that they are achievable through living Christ’s restored gospel. 

Later on, Elder Gong cleverly reminded listeners of the title and main idea of his speech by using another expectation versus reality comparison in the line “my friend and her husband joyfully learned family relationships need not be ‘until death do you part.’”

Analyzing this talk was fun because 1) I got to listen to it again and 2) I feel like I drew back the curtain of “Communications” a bit and caught a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it’s like to study communications in the real world (albeit a digital recording).

This project definitely helped me apply what I’ve learned in COMMS 101 so far, which was pretty fun. If you are grading this assignment, thanks for reading! And if not, what are you doing here…? -Annie ❤

1. ^{_{Why lead with nonverbal communication when analyzing a speech? Well, because it’s a video of a speech, and even in this verbally-focused medium, the bulk of communication is composed of nonverbal aspects. Communication theorist Marshall McLuhan famously said “the medium is the message,” and I agree that the format of Elder Gong’s speech (i.e. a General Conference talk) greatly influenced the message its author sought to communicate.}} ↩︎
2. _{^{Why? See footnote number 1.}} ↩︎