EFFECTS OF THE PANDEMIC PROCESS ON COMMUNICATION: ITS REFLECTION ON RELATIONS

Abstract

In the study, it was tried to evaluate the COVID-19 epidemic which affected the whole world and how communication skills are challenged and how the flow and reception of the messages and emotions to be conveyed are resricted with this epidemic. It has been evaluated that obtained results from that study demonstrate how affected and shaped communication. In the addition that for communication added theory as a pandemic theory. In the study, a questionaire was applied to 100 university students with the contribution of technology, communication skills, emotions, thoughts and messages that are intended to be conveyed have become robotic in the full sense with the reflection of technology on life in a different dimension with each passing day, the exposure of face to face communication and close contact to distances has dulled the openness and sincerity in relations and has turned interpersonal communication into pandemic communication by taking it away from reality. With the COVID-19 epidemic being named as a pandemic, it is inevitable for people to go to the obligatory distance to protect themselves and individual and corporate communications have rapidly turned to adapt to the new world order by digitalizing. Events, messages pushed individuals and institutions to new and different communication portals. In addition, different cultures, understandings and thoughts have started to be accepted with digital flow in this way. This situation has also directed the relations differently, force the face to face communication flow to become robotic and stereotyped. The pandemic has created a faster adaptation to the developing technology and has turned communication into a digital communication model. At this point, the transfer of emotions, thoughts and messages has left the emotional nature of communication and put it in the mold of necessity. Processing of information, assimilating, producing, thinking and expressing emotions has completely changed with the pandemic. The fact that the emotions were not conveyed face to face with the body language. Feelings couldn’t demonstrated as natural and the relationships live a chaos in their pattern. In summary, in the study, how the COVID-19 epidemic affected and shaped interpersonal communication was examined and how this reflected on emotions, thoughts and relationships was investigated.

Key Words: Pandemi Process, Communication, Technology, Interaction