Find the dots, connect the dots, see the picture.

"After 350 Years, Vatican Says Galileo Was Right: It Moves."

New York Times

The reporting of events in the mass media often contributes to the belief that a knowledgeable individual has described those events accurately and fully. If we consider mass media reports as stimuli made available through language and visuals, we can then suggest that news reports represent an observable, usable environment. In essence, the words and visuals appear to represent "dots" we can discover, connect, and use to form conclusions, much like a child's "connect-the-dots" puzzle.

As children, many of us were rewarded by the clear, unambiguous pictures that emerged as a result of our ability to "connect the dots" sequentially. As adults, however, a similar connect-the-dots approach to interpreting news reports may contribute to perceptions and actions that extend beyond "having fun."

Perhaps a more satisfying reward for adults lies in recognizing that "dots" discovered in news reports do not necessarily follow any sequence, let alone a particular sequence, and that any pictures "discovered" probably reveal more about the perceiver than the environment.

Exhaustively "covered" topics in the news have recently ranged from conflicts among ethnic groups in Bosnia to the Tanya Harding and O. J. Simpson criminal cases. Current news reports about Sarajevo, for example, often include "official" comments from several sides regarding the appropriate or inappropriate actions of NATO members. The conclusions any of us may draw about this world event five years from now (or about what "Galileo knew," centuries ago), represent an outcome of a process that includes our ability to discover and use linguistic and visual equivalents of "dots in the environment."

And any time we forget that news reports contain fewer details than those available to observers or researchers, we run the risk of believing that media reports contain all the information we need to form a clear, unambiguous picture.

Perhaps those who judged Galileo as "mistaken" failed to alert others to the limited number and probably unrepresentative nature of the "dots" they used to form their conclusion. Today, failure to remind ourselves - as well as others - that we have used second-hand reports derived from limited stimuli available for observation, can easily contribute to similarly inaccurate conclusions.

At the same time, a basic point made in the general semantics literature, that we cannot find all of the "dots" in the environment, seems to us to have considerably less than universal understanding and appreciation. For example, news reports, by definition, offer less than everything that happens, yet reporters rarely state that point explicitly.

For some of us at least, reliance on English "to-be" verbs without first-person references may also contribute to a limited - and limiting - perceptual focus. In English, for example, we can follow the rules of the language, and make a statement such as, "NATO officials behaved properly and are justified in not bombing the guns around Sarajevo." This sentence allows its creator to claim that the comment is only about NATO officials and their actions. In no way does this statement remind the speaker or listeners that the conclusion more accurately reflects subjective perception rather than objective truth.

Using first-person references and avoiding certain "to-be" verbs allows speakers to acknowledge the role of personal perception in their conclusions. For example, in first-person sentences without "to-be" verbs, the following statement could be generated easily and naturally: "I observed two NATO officials on CNN, and based on their comments, I think they acted appropriately." This sentence appears to us to have greater potential for reminding our listeners that we base our conclusions on specific and limited information.

Communicators who acknowledge their inability to discover all of the dots in an infinite environment may often recognize that whatever sequence they followed, they cannot legitimately claim to offer an unambiguous picture. Moreover, admissions that we base our perceptions on specific and limited information may afford us a higher probability of intelligent consideration by others. Finally, indicating the information base used to form conclusions represents a very basic tenet of general semantics, as well as an important step toward cooperative, "sane" communication.

While we can never formulate or share entirely unambiguous connect-the-dot "pictures" based solely on news reports, who knows what we might discover by venturing "outside the lines?"

Charles G. Russell is Professor of Communication at the University of Toledo and a management\communication consultant. Judith C. White is medical editor and president of Scribe Communications Ink, a writing and editing service.