Communication Obstacles in Institutions: A Socio-Anthropological Analysis

Communication within institutions is often presumed to be a neutral, linear transfer of information. However, Michel Foucault warns us against this assumption: “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere. And 'Power,' in this sense, is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategically situation in a particular society" (Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, 1978, p. 93). Hence, institutional communication is itself a terrain of power, negotiation, resistance, and reproduction of norms.

• 2.    Encoding and Decoding Obstacles2.1    Misalignment of Cultural Frames

  Communication begins with encoding, the act of creating meaning using a set of symbols, signs, and referents. As Stuart Hall elaborates, audiences do not passively absorb meanings. Instead, they interpret messages in various ways: "There is no necessary correspondence between encoding and decoding... because each social group has its own frameworks of knowledge, relations of production, and technical infrastructure" (Hall, Encod-ing/Decoding, in Culture, Media, Language, 1980, p. 131).

• 2.2    Jargon, Bureaucratic Language, and Symbolic Capital

  Language itself becomes a gatekeeper when it is laden with institutional jargon. Pierre Bourdieu highlights how linguistic capital functions as a form of power: "Language is not only an instrument of communication or even of knowledge, but also an instrument of power... it becomes a medium for the imposition and reproduction of domination" (Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 1991, p. 37).

• 2.3    Emotional and Affective Filtering

• 2.4    Symbolic Violence and Language

  Bourdieu conceptualizes symbolic violence as the "gentle, invisible violence which is never recognized as such, and is exercised essentially through the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition, recognition, or even feeling" (Bourdieu, La Noblesse d'État, 1989, p. 23).

• 3.    Channel and Feedback Obstacles3.1    Asymmetrical Access and Information Gatekeeping

  Audre Lorde reminds us: "The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change" (Lorde, Sister Outsider, 1984, p. 112).

In multilingual institutional environments, such as hospitals, frame mismatches are a common cause of miscommunication. A study in South African public hospitals revealed that health care professionals often misinterpreted the complaints of patients who lacked fluency in the dominant language, resulting in medical errors and delayed treatments.

Consider corporate environments during mergers. New acronyms, protocols, and terminologies flood internal communication. Lower-tier employees often find themselves excluded, not by intent but by a lack of access to this newly established linguistic capital. This exclusion translates to decreased morale, errors in implementation, and a widening gap between strategic and operational tiers.

Institutions often demand emotional labor, particularly from those in customer-facing roles. Arlie Hochschild defines emotional labor as "the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display;

emotional labor is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value" (Hochschild, The Managed Heart, 1983, p. 7).

Marginalized workers—especially women of color in service roles—often suppress their authentic emotional responses to meet the institution’s affective requirements. Over time, this results in an emotional numbing that affects the clarity, authenticity, and effectiveness of their communication.

In academic institutions, for instance, certain accents or dialects are often stigmatized. A student with a workingclass vernacular might be subtly corrected or dismissed in seminars. These corrections are rarely overt but accumulate as messages of exclusion, shaping who feels entitled to speak.

Institutional communication channels are often configured to prioritize the voices of those at the top of the hierarchy. Contract workers in tech firms, for instance, are frequently excluded from vital email threads or decision-making Slack channels, reinforcing their peripheral status.

• 3.2    Feedback Suppression and Whistleblower Dynamics

  Paulo Freire criticizes traditional models of education and institutional communication for treating individuals as passive receivers: "The teacher talks and the students listen—meekly. The teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined... Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor" (Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970, p. 72).

• 3.3    Technological Inequities

• 3.4    Media and Platform Bias

• 4.    Situational and Contact Obstacles4.1    Personal and Psychological Barriers

  Freire writes of the colonized mind: "Self-depreciation is another characteristic of the oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them" (Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970, p. 47).

• 4.2    Regulatory and Bureaucratic Constraints

  bell hooks asserts that "Institutions reflect the values and beliefs of the dominant culture" (hooks, teaching to Transgress, 1994, p. 63). Bureaucratic red tape often stifles cross-departmental collaboration and innovation. Complex approval chains, siloed departments, and compliance overreach inhibit open dialogue.

• 4.3    Physical and Spatial Architecture

  Henri Lefebvre argues that "Space is not a passive locus of social relations but is itself an active component in the production and reproduction of social life" (Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 1974, p. 77).

• 4.4    Psychosocial Threats and Stereotype Threat

  Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson’s research shows that stereotype threat—the fear of confirming negative stereo-types—can inhibit the cognitive performance of marginalized groups: "The mere salience of a stereotype... can disrupt performance in the domain the stereotype is about" (Steele & Aronson, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1995, Vol. 69, p. 798). In institutional meetings, this manifests as reduced participation from

This "banking model" parallels institutions that suppress feedback. Whistleblowers who attempt to highlight institutional malpractice often face retaliation, legal threats, or social isolation.

The digital divide represents a modern obstacle to equitable communication. In public sector institutions, staff from lower-income backgrounds may lack reliable inter- net access or digital fluency, impairing their ability to engage fully in remote workspaces.

In a 2021 UNESCO report, nearly 2.9 billion people globally were reported to lack internet access, with significant consequences for educational and occupational participation (UNESCO: Reimagining our Futures Together, 2021).

Algorithmic biases in social media and internal platforms also shape institutional communication. Content that aligns with dominant views tends to be more visible, while dissenting or nuanced opinions are buried. As Alberto Arcecha quipped, "News is what someone wants to suppress; everything else is advertising" (Attributed in media ethics literature).

This internalized oppression manifests in imposter syndrome, particularly among first-generation professionals in academia or governance roles. They may hesitate to ask questions or propose ideas, fearing exposure as a fraud.

The layout of open-plan offices, surveillance cameras, or lack of accessible meeting rooms can communicate mistrust or marginalization, particularly for neurodivergent individuals or those with mobility challenges.

women or racial minorities, even when they are equally or more qualified than their peers.

• 5.    Intersectionality and Layered Marginalization

  Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the concept of intersec-tionality to address how different systems of oppression— such as racism, sexism, classism, and ableism—interact to produce compounded forms of disadvantage. She writes, “Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated" (Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex, 1989, p. 140).

• 6.    Towards Inclusive Communication: Strategies and Best Practices

  • 6.1    Policy-Level Interventions

• 6.2    Training and Capacity Building

  Inclusive communication requires intentional capacity building. Cultural competence training, active listening workshops, and emotional intelligence programs can help bridge understanding gaps. According to the National Institutes of Health, their internal implementation of inclusive communication modules resulted in a 24% increase in cross-departmental collaboration within two years (NIH Inclusion Report, 2021).

• 6.3    Technological Accessibility

In institutional settings, these intersecting identities often lead to compounded communication barriers. A disabled immigrant woman working in a manufacturing plant may face language barriers, physical inaccessibility, and patronizing attitudes simultaneously. Her experiences cannot be understood in isolation; they are shaped by the intersection of multiple oppressions.

A 2022 case study from a Canadian garment factory found that non-native English speakers with physical disabilities reported the highest levels of miscommunication-related injuries, yet they were the least likely to attend safety briefings due to spatial segregation and linguistic exclusion.

To dismantle communicative hierarchies, institutions must build transparent policies that include safe, protected channels for dissent and feedback. Institutions should adopt whistleblower protection policies that ensure anonymity and safeguard from retaliation.

Frantz Fanon asserts, “To speak means to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization” (Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 1952, p. 17). Institutions must recognize that allowing individuals to speak freely is not just about words—it is about affirming their identity and humanity.

Implementing open-door policies, anonymous suggestion systems, and rotational leadership structures can democratize institutional discourse.

Training must be continuous and reflexive, not checkbox exercises. Role-play, immersive storytelling, and intergroup dialogue sessions provide experiential learning that reshapes institutional cultures from within.

Digital tools can bridge gaps, but only if designed inclusively. Adhering to Universal Design principles is crucial. These include:

• -       Screen-reader compatibility (for visually impaired

users)

• -      Captioned media content (for hearing-impaired

individuals)

• -       Language toggle functions

• -       Low-bandwidth versions for areas with poor in

• 6.4    Participatory Governance and Co-Design

  Participatory design enables institutions to create communication systems with, not just for, their communities. Paulo Freire advocated for a dialogical method where power and knowledge are co-constructed: “Leaders who do not act dialogically but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people—they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress” (Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970, p. 129).

• 6.5    Spatial and Architectural Solutions

  The design of space plays a critical communicative role. As Henri Lefebvre emphasized, space is not neutral: it "is a social product" and can be either emancipatory or repressive (Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 1974, p. 26).

ternet connectivity

The World Health Organization (WHO) underscores this in its guidelines: “Digital communication must be designed to reduce inequities, not reinforce them. Equitycentered design is foundational to public health messaging” (WHO, Communication for Health Equity, 2021).

Examples include participatory budgeting initiatives, where marginalized community members vote on municipal spending priorities. Similarly, institutional town halls and focus groups that are genuinely co-led by diverse stakeholders create more equitable communicative ecoBibliography systems.

Designing inclusive spaces involves:

• -       Creating non-hierarchical seating arrangements

• -       Providing quiet zones for neurodivergent individ

uals

• -       Ensuring wheelchair access and sensory-friendly

• 7.    Conclusion

meeting rooms

Open-access lounges, rotating meeting spaces, and decentralized floor plans disrupt traditional spatial hierarchies and encourage diverse interactions.

Institutional communication is never neutral. It reflects and reproduces broader social hierarchies unless explicitly redesigned to foster equity. The obstacles we ex-plored—linguistic, technological, spatial, affective, and symbolic—are not isolated bugs but systemic features. They require systemic solutions.

In closing, a shift toward inclusive, participatory, and reflexive communication is not just ethically imperative but functionally necessary for institutional resilience. Communication is the nervous system of any institution; when it fails some, it fails all.

As bell hooks reminds us: "True resistance begins with people confronting pain… and wanting to do something to change it" (hooks, All About Love, 2000, p. 216). Let that be our institutional ethos.

• 1.    Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

• 2.    Bourdieu, P. (1989). La Noblesse d'État: Grandes écoles et esprit de corps. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.

• 3.    Crenshaw, K. (1989). "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex." University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167.

• 4.    Fanon, F. (1952). Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press.

• 5.    Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books.

• 6.    Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.

• 7.    Hall, S. (1980). "Encoding/Decoding." In Culture, Media, Language, ed. Stuart Hall et al., 128–138. London: Routledge.

• 8.    Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.

• 9.    hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.

• 10.    hooks, b. (2000). All About Love: New Visions. New York: William Morrow.

• 11.    Lefebvre, H. (1974). The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.

• 12.    Lorde, A. (1984). Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press.

• 13.    Steele, C., & Aronson, J. (1995). "Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797–811.

• 14.    UNESCO. (2021). Reimagining Our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education. Paris: UNESCO.

• 15.    WHO. (2021). Communication for Health Equity: Guidelines and Frameworks. Geneva: World Health Organization.

• 16.    NIH. (2021). Inclusion in Scientific Research: Annual Report. Bethesda: National Institutes of Health.

708 – , | Issue 6, Vol. 8, 2025

Communication Obstacles in Institutions: A Socio-Anthropological Analysis

Merabet Ayeche Azzouz, Braham Issam, Lemmouchi Zineb