MUTED GROUP THEORY

According to Griffin (2009), muted group are those people with little power who have trouble giving voice to their perceptions because they must re-encode their thoughts to make them understood in the public sphere (p. 455). According to Kramarae and other feminist theorists, women’s words are discounted in our society and their thoughts are devalued. The man constructed language “aids in defining, depreciating and excluding women” (p. 454).

For example:

The image above shows how the men are keeping their ego by asking her to only give support when she asked them if she could be of any help.

Reference:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed). New                      York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

GENDERLECT THEORY

Griffin (2009) defined genderlect as “a term suggesting that masculine and feminine styles of discourse are best viewed as two distinct cultural dialects” (p. 430). Tannen in her book You just don’t understand stated that “male-female conversation is cross-cultural communication” (Griffin, 2009, p.429). She added on that miscommunications occur all the time between men and women without realising that they are in a cross-cultural encounter because the effect is rather insidious.

According to Tannen, she distinguished the women’s need for human connection whilst the men like independence and would rather compete their way up the hierarchy to claim a status, “Girls and women feel that it is crucial that they be liked by their peers, a form of involvement that focuses on symmetrical connection. Boys and men feel it is crucial that they be respected by their peers, a form of involvement that focuses on asymmetrical status” (Griffin, 2009, p. 432).

For example:

The above video shows a short clip taken from A Walk to Remember which supports Tannen statement of how women seek for connection and men rather keep themselves unattached.

According to Tannen, women talk more than men in private conversations and when it comes to telling a story, women tend to express their desire for community by telling stories about others or they are the character in their own narrative, these women rather describe themselves as foolish than smart. Whereas men tend to tell jokes when they tell a story.

When it comes to listening, a woman would hold eye contact, nod heads and react with an uhmm, right or yeah. Whereas for man being concerned with status, such overt style of listening mean I agree with you. Even when it comes to asking questions, women do so to establish connection where it’s their cue of telling that they’re open for a good chat but for men, they’d make the speaker seem wishy-washy. Men are also more comfortable with conflict and would less likely hold themselves back.

Reference:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).                               New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY

Charles Berger noted that “the beginning of a personal relationships are fraught with uncertainties”. Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) focuses on how human communication is used to gain knowledge and create understanding (Griffin, 2009, p. 125). According to Whaley & Samter (2009), people can manage uncertainty that they have about others through communicating and that talking will help us answer our questions and find other means of coping with uncertainty (p. 224).

Berger added on that there are three conditions which act as a booster for us to reduce uncertainty about the other person: anticipation of future interaction (we know we will see them again), incentive value (they have something we want) and deviance (they act in a weird way). He believes that out purpose of communicating is to “make sense” out of our interpersonal world (Griffin, 2009, pp. 125-126).

According to Berger, on our first meeting with a person, we will be facing two types of uncertainty: 

- Behavioural questions -  which is often followed by procedural protocols in easing the behavioural uncertainty can cause

- Cognitive questions – aimed to discover what is unique about the other person as an individual

He also proposes a series of axioms (self evident truths that require no additional proof) which are central to his concept of uncertainty and eight key variables of relationship development:

Axiom 1: Verbal Communication – if the amount of interaction between strangers increases, the level of uncertainty between them will decrease. As uncertainty decreases, verbal communication will increase.

Axiom 2: Nonverbal Warmth - as nonverbal warmth increases on the first meeting, the uncertainty level will decrease.

Axiom 3: Information Seeking – information seeking behaviour increases when there’s a high level of uncertainty. The information seeking behaviour will decrease when there’s a decline in uncertainty.

Axiom 4: Self disclosure – high levels of uncertainty in a relationship cause decreases in the intimacy level of communication content. Low levels of uncertainty produce high levels of intimacy.

Axiom 5: Reciprocity – high levels of uncertainty produce high rates of reciprocity. Low levels of uncertainty produce low levels of reciprocity.

Axiom 6: Similarity – similarities between persons reduce uncertainty, while dissimilarities produce increases in uncertainty.

Axiom 7: Liking – increases in uncertainty level produce decreases in liking; decreases in uncertainty produce increases in liking.

Axiom 8: Shared Networks – shared communication networks reduce uncertainty, while lack of shared networks increases uncertainty.

Berger’s message plans to cope with uncertain responses

1.      Seeking information – passive strategy, active strategy and interactive strategy

2.      Choosing plan complexity – a characteristic of a message plan based on the level of detail it provides and the number of contingencies it covers

3.      Hedging – use of strategic ambiguity and humour to provide a way for both parties to save face when a message fails to achieve its goal.

4.      The hierarchy hypothesis – the prediction that when people are thwarted in their attempts to achieve goals, their first tendency is to alter lower level elements of their message

For example:

The above image is an English novel adaptation movie which tells the story of a girl named Georgia and how she ended up in a relationship with Robbie who has just moved to Eastbourne. Georgia first saw Robbie on the first day of school and became instantly attracted to him. She and her friends went to spy on Robbie and his brother right after school while they were exploring the new place (passive strategy) to see what the two cute brothers were like (axiom 3: information seeking). Georgia set up a plan to get closer to Robbie by pretending to Robbie that her cat Angus went missing since she noticed Robbie likes cat (interactive strategy). While searching for Angus, Georgia asked Robbie about him, why did he move to Eastbourne and so on and in return Robbie asked her questions as well (axiom 4: self-disclosure and axiom 5: reciprocity). They found out that they share the same taste in music when Robbie told her that he played in band other than having the same interest in cats (axiom 6: similarity).

References:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed). New                 York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Whaley, B. B., & Samter, W. (2009). Explaining communication:                         contemporary theories and exemplars. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.bn/books? id=58elr6iOOxsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=explaining+communication+-+contemporary+theories+and+exemplers&hl=ms&sa=X&ei=vhOLT-v4CsTZrQe9rpnTCw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=explaining%20communication%20-%20contemporary%20theories%20and%20exemplers&f=false

COMMUNICATION ACCOMODATION THEORY

Communication Accomodation Theory (CAT) is theory founded by a Welsh psychologist named Howard Giles. He claimed that people coming from a different ethnic or cultural groups tend to speak in a way that they accommodate each other in order to gain mutual approval (Griffin, 2009, p. 387).

“Communication Accomodation Theory provides a wide ranging framework aimed at predicting and explaining many of the adjustments that individuals make to create, maintain, or decrease social distance in interaction. It explores the different ways in which we accommodate our communication, our motivations for doing so and the consequences” (Whaley & Samter, 2009, p. 325). Basically, the theory explains how our way of communicating with another person affect the way we speak so that the other person will be able to understand what’s been communicated to them and so both are clearly on the same line.

According to Whaley and Samter (2009), communications is used to indicate individuals attitudes toward each other and this becomes a barometer of the level of social distance between them. The constant movement toward and away from others, by changing one’s communicative behaviour is referred to as accommodation (Whaley & Samter, 2009, p. 326). There are two strategic forms that people use in accommodating their communication: convergence and divergence (Griffin, 2009, p. 388).

Griffin (2009) defined convergence as “a strategy by which you adapt your communication behaviour in such a way as to become more similar to another person” (p. 388). Whereas divergence means “a communication strategy of accentuating the differences between yourself and another person” (p. 389).

For example:

Harold and Kumar is a good example to explain the convergence strategy. It is obvious from the image that they are both of different races where Harold is a Korean while Kumar is an Indian. However to achieve mutual understanding both opt to speak in English.

The image above is an example of divergence strategy. The girl is avoiding eye contact and looking away from the camera.

References:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).                               New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Whaley, B. B., & Samter, W. (2009). Explaining communication:                             contemporary theories and exemplars. Retrieved from    http://books.google.com.bn/books?id=58elr6iOOxsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=explaining+communication+-+contemporary+theories+and+exemplers&hl=ms&sa=X&ei=vhOLT-v4CsTZrQe9rpnTCw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=explaining%20communication%20-%20contemporary%20theories%20and%20exemplers&f=false

SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY

Social penetration theory is a theory suggested by social psychologists Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor which explains the development of relational closeness (Griffin, 2009, p. 114). Griffin (2009) defined social penetration as “the process of developing deeper intimacy with another person through mutual self- disclosure and other forms of vulnerability” (p. 114). The theory simply explains how people develop closeness with each other after experiencing a gradual information-sharing right from the superficial to the intimate level that would eventually lead to the formation of some kind of relationship.

Altman and Taylor made a comparison between people to onions whereby the layers of an onion depict the multilayered structure of personality. Each layers of the onion represent an individual beliefs and feelings about own self, others and the world and as the layers reached to the deeper level, these represent a more vulnerable, protected and central to one’s self image which includes one’s values, self-concept, possible unresolved conflicts and deeply felt emotions (Griffin, 2009, p. 114).

There are 5 stages under social penetration: ‘orientation stage’, ‘exploratory affective stage’, ‘affective stage’, ‘stable stage’ and ‘depenetration’ (Altman & Taylor, 1973). Here I will be using a 2002 movie adaptation of Nicholas Spark’s novel, A Walk to Remember, to explain these social penetration stages.

A Walk to Remember depict the story of how a popular but rebellious Landon Carter (played by Shane West) fell in love with a girl whose behaviour contradicts Landon’s. Jamie Sullivan (played by Mandy Moore) is the reverend’s daughter who was quiet, kind and a bookworm. The ‘orientation stage’ started when they were in a school bus right after tutoring the needy children where Jamie initiate a conversation with Landon and asked him if he wanted to buy tickets to help raise a fund to which Landon abruptly shut her by telling her if that’s her idea of a small talk, then it’s not working.

Although they didn’t start off on a smooth path, however they managed to go through the ‘exploratory affective stage’ where Landon was forced to join a play in the drama club to make up for his punishment by the school’s headmaster. There he began to develop a “secret friendship” with Jamie as he was seeking for her help by going through lines together since Jamie was taking part in the play as well and on another account, Landon also found out that Jamie has a passion for astronomy when he encountered her going to a cemetery with a telescope.

After so many times spent together, Landon realized he began to develop feelings for Jamie who initially made him swore that he wouldn’t fall in love with her but apparently he failed to resist his own feelings. This is where the ‘affective stage’ takes place where their relationship started to develop and Landon even went to see the reverend and seek for his permission to allow him to take his daughter out and Jamie was mesmerised by Landon’s bold moves.

When Jamie fell ill one day, Landon went on to fulfil her wishes from building an enormous telescope, to applying for Medicine’s school, to proposing to Jamie and marrying her at the church where her parents got married. This is known as the ‘stable stage’.

However, the ‘depenetration stage’ occurs when Jamie passed away and ever since Landon was thankful that she made him a better man and he’d always missed her.

References:

Altman, I., & Taylor, D. (1973). Social Penetration Theory. Retrieved                fromhttps://www2.mcdaniel.edu/rtrader/com1102/socialpenetrationtheory.pdf   

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).                        New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Symbolic interactionism is a theory founded by George Herbert Mead but the term was coined by Herbert Blumer (Griffin, 2009, p. 60). According to Charon (1989) in his book titled Symbolic Interactionism: an introduction, and interpretation, an integration stated that, “Symbolic interactionism focuses on the nature of interaction, the dynamic social activities taking place between persons” (p. 22).

Blumer (1986) defined symbolic interactionism as “a label for a relatively distinctive approach to the study of human group life and human conduct” (p. 1). Griffin (2009) defined symbolic interaction as a way of communicating through symbols; the conversation between people and Mead claimed that by talking to each other, he saw it as the most human and humanizing activity that people can engage in (p. 60). Blumer came up with three core principles of symbolic interactionism: meaning, language and thought (Griffin, 2009, p. 60).

MEANING

According to Blumer (1986), the way human beings act toward things are based on the meanings of the other things are presented to them for example physical objects such as chair, other human beings such as mother, institutions such as school and many more. Hence this is why meaning is said to be the construction of social reality.

LANGUAGE

The second premise is said to be the source of meaning and this is because meaning could only be produced out of the interaction that people have with each other (Griffin, 2009, p.60). Meaning could only be achieved through the use of language – hence the term symbolic interactionism.

THOUGHT

Blumer’s final premise focus on how one’s interpretation of symbols is modified by his or her own thought processes (Griffin, 2009, p. 62). Mead referred thought as minding which is a two second delay that we took while mentally rehearsing our next step, the alternatives and anticipating the reactions from others. Mead’s greatest contribution is his notion that we, human beings, have the capacity to take the role of the other.

As soon as we understand the tight connections between these premises, we will then be able to take hold of Mead’s concept of self. Mead claimed that we take the role of the other in trying to imagine how we look like from another person’s view. This is what the interactionists called as the looking glass self and it is socially constructed. Mead also claimed that the self is a continuous process combining the “I” which is the spontaneous self and the “me” which is the self reflection based on other people’s reaction (Griffin, 2009, p. 63).

For example: 

The image above tells the story of Viola Hastings (played by Amanda Bynes) who is a passionate soccer player. One day the Cornwall’s girls’ soccer team was cut off and Viola asked the soccer’s coach if she could join the boys’ team but the coach refused to accept her proposal. She decided to work her way in order to get her revenge on the Cornwall’s team and join the Illyria’s soccer team which happened to be the rival and Viola signed herself up and join the Illyria team as her twin brother Sebastian Hastings, who was supposed to register at Illyria as a new student but decided to take a flight to London with his band to try their luck. The movie reflects Viola’s “I” and “me” where her true self is rather a tomboy-ish girl who loves soccer to the point that she’s willing to transform herself to be her twin brother, however being raised in a socialite family and as a debutante, she has to wear dresses as expected by her mother and behave like a real young maiden should.  

References:

Blumer, H. (1986). Symbolic interactionism: perspective and method. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.bn/booksid=HVuognZFofoC&printsec= frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Charon, J.M. (1989). Symbolic interactionism: an introduction, an                       interpretation, an integration. (3^rd ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed). New                     York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

CULTURAL STUDIES

The term culture often varies depending on the context which is being brought forward in an interaction. “Culture is the ensemble of social processes by which meaning are produced, circulated and exchanged” (Thwaites et al., 1994, p. 1).

Henslin (1998) in his book titled Essentials of Sociology: A down-to-earth approach stated that, “All human groups possess culture – language, beliefs, values, norms and material objects passed from one generation to the next.  Material culture consists of objects (art, buildings, clothing, tools). Nonmaterial (or symbolic) culture is a group’s way of thinking and patterns of behaviour. Ideal culture is the values and norms that a group holds out for itself. Real culture is their actual behaviour, which often falls short of their cultural ideals” (p. 53).

Whereas Griffin (2009) sees cultural studies as, “A neo-Marxist critique that sets forth the position that mass media manufacture consent for dominant ideologies” (p.334). In short, the study looks into the matter of the way of life of certain group, community or society and how meaning of some things may differ between these group, community or society.

Before going further, it is crucial that we understand the term visual culture. As stated by Mirzoeff (1999) in his book titled An Introduction to Visual Culture, “Visual culture is concerned with visual events in which information, meaning, or pleasure is sought by the consumer in an interface with visual technology...any form of apparatus designed either to be looked at or to enhance natural vision, from oil painting to television and the internet” (p.3). He further added to the statement that postmodernity is created by the visual crisis of culture instead of textuality.

Edgar & Sedgwick (2008) sees visual culture as a representation of a ‘pictorial turn’ in cultural studies which theorists focus on the visual image and back away from text (verbal or literary).  How I view this is that as we are living in a post modern world, we are presented with various visual media types and our consumption of these media is somehow influential and affecting our lifestyle.

For example:

‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ is a reality television series which focus on the life of the Kardashian and Jenner family. The Kardashians sisters and their brother Rob are known for being the children of the late Robert Kardashian, an attorney who won the defense against the O.J Simpsons murder trial. Other than that they are also famous for being socialites, models, their clothing line businesses and television personalities based on their multiple reality programs.

There are a few key terms which are needed to be taken into account in learning cultural studies: representations, discourse, ideologies and politics. In the lecture notes, Chris has mentioned that representation involves interpretation and always takes place in a discourse. The above statement is the representation of the image – ‘the Kardashian’.

Whereas discourse is defined by Foucault as the ‘frameworks of interpretation’ which is used in order to make sense (Griffin, 2009, p. 337). Thwaites et al (1994) defined discourse as “a set of textual arrangements which organises and co-ordinates the actions, positions and identities of the people who produce it” (p. 135). The discourse for the example above is ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’.

Ideology is the process of representing material social relationships, and of attempting to reconcile them in discourse (Thwaites et al, 1994, p. 155). The ideologies that the Kardashians represents are wealth, high end fashion brands, beautiful (facial and curves), first class, lifestyles of the rich and famous, family hood.

Whereas politics as told during lecture is defined as involving all those processes whereby power relationships are implemented, maintained, challenge or altered in any sphere of activity whatsoever. The politics of the Kardashians are politics of consumerism, politics of femininity, politics of fashion and politics of class.

References:

Edgar, A., & Sedgwick, P. (2008). Cultural theory: the key concepts.                       (2^nd ed). London; New York: Routledge

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).New York:                             The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Henslin, J. M. (1998). Essentials of sociology: a down-to-earth approach.              (2^nd ed). USA: A Viacom Company

Mirzoeff, N. (1999). An introduction to visual culture. Retrieved from                  http://books.google.com.bn/bookshl=en&lr=&id=hhajBE0mUfwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=visual+culture&ots=itaAhWzgla&sig=8EtlXLeNAeuWMFYbyiZbl3ONsvg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=visual%20culture&f=false

Thwaites, T., Davis, L., & Mules, W. (1994). Tools for cultural studies:                  an introduction. South Melbourne: Macmillan