Rekindling the Human Touch in Communication

By Priya Chaudhary, S M Sehgal Foundation

Cartoons and films in the ’90s imagined the 2020s to look AI-driven, with flying cars, automated humans, robot villas, and urban India transcending into a low-key Silicon Valley. While a lot was predicted in terms of easing life with tech-driven solutions, communication was left out of imagination. Funnily enough, science argues that the speed of light (here referred to and compared with tech-upgradation) is much faster than the speed of sound in air. Standing true to its nature, sound communication could not travel as fast in the predictions as light compared with tech upgradation. 

While technology has surpassed humans in a number of tasks, communication and information sharing still has gaps. Some believe that humans subconsciously create problems without having the scope to understand if the problem can be solved or not—brilliantly fitting a thought-provoking belief that the proliferation of AI and AI-generated content has emerged as a significant risk in spreading misinformation and deliberately affecting the integrity of information.

Why does communication require a human-touch?

Communication plays and important role in all organizations, serving as a front-tier and a back-support function for secure and ethical information dissemination. To this task, various tools assist us in proofreading, checking grammar, framing sentences, and even writing a thesis. Thankfully, AI chatbots are still not as strong as “Ra One” (the human-developed game villain that became more powerful than humans in a Bollywood fiction movie). Hence, we have visible limitations. Sigh!

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For instance, chatbots have provided us with the autonomy to post text-heavy threads on the web, which they might not otherwise have been able to craft compellingly. This is a great help for many. However, in this race to stand out, we are all again following the sheep trail. The language that such chatbots use has a set format that overuses many phrases and words, generating the same tedious content with very little research and an excessive use of gerund verbs, making the written piece monotonous. 

Most of these bots do not have updated information available, which again poses a high risk of disinformation. A core role in communication is to perform a thorough fact check using reliable sources to ensure that no outdated data or statistics are shared with the audience—something AI-based chatbots often fail to do, and we humans still have to take control of. Humans have a USP (unique selling proposition). We may call it a human touch, and suddenly marketing in communication is at its best.

Communicating in the Development Sector

For ten years I chose to change this world and improve lives through social impact work and write about that work; and about four years ago I started being paid for this skill. In this realm of groundwork and writing, I have tried to do justice to creating stories of change in a form that resonates with the reader the same way it does with the person/s who felt the change. Most Friday nights, I scroll down and cry over the videos of strangers seeking happiness in different videos, or read stories of how someone helped someone. Every time a heartfelt message reaches me, it makes my day better. That is the type of impact that such content is supposed to have on an audience.

The core of communication lies in penning down the practical experience in different forms for different audiences, be it long blogs, short testimonials, videos, or threads.

A far-down perspective lens

Working in the nonprofit sector, human interest stories and case studies are very important, as they serve as catalysts in showcasing impactful work. A core part of communication is to consider a third viewpoint with a mix of both IQ and EQ values—identifying story-worthy subjects, creating a narrative, looking through multiple lenses, humanizing, and curating content.

I happened to catch an old video circulating recently on the internet of a talent show, where the contestant on stage displayed her painting skills. Sadly, it did not catch the judges’ attention in the first few seconds, which led to all four of the judges’ buzzers turning red. The masterpiece she was working on was only revealed after she was outright rejected. That video really had me doubting the judges’ cognitive status.

Relevance? More often than not, we tend to perceive something from a single lens, which might seem like a complete picture to us but is far from reality. Working as a communication expert, it is crucial not to have preconceived notions. We must try to measure situations from a neutral lens to uncover the story in its broader context. Adjusting interpretations helps us understand the road to a conceptual lens and allows us to seek when needed and step back when the focal lens starts to diminish. Forcing an immediate interpretation limits the perspective viewpoint.

Ensuring Information Integrity

Circling back to cartoons, let me paint a potential script in pictures. Communication experts serve as animated characters and uniformed officers, policing content to ensure that no incorrect information—whether written, graphical, or verbal—leaves the room, terminating the problem at its core. We have glasses, our weapon is a pen and a pocket full of updated encyclopedias and tiny, round reading glasses, over which we may also use a magnifying glass to authenticate a story. Interesting enough to watch and interesting enough to make a comic on it too!

This represents the work that communication professionals dedicate to authenticating information disseminated across the world. The effort involved in assessing, fact-checking, and editing minor mistakes, and tailoring content for audiences to reignite the empathy inherently built into humans but seemingly lost over recent decades due to the cruelty of life is at the heart of what we aim to convey.

Communication is the slow-cooking of a prepared meal, plating it in different forms, drizzling it with spices and sauces, and enhancing the features of a good story, an impact, or a revolution. Our responsibility is neither to oversell nor undersell the ideas or work we present; rather, it involves finding the perfect balance and crafting accurate and verified information that preserves integrity in all its forms—so that those with much to say have someone to help say it for them.

(India CSR)