Chapter 35 Muted Group Theory

In chapter 35 Kramarae talks about the idea that language is "man" made. Meaning that our language was developed and based around men. In this theory she points out that it excludes women, causing them to become "muted". By muted, she does not mean silent, more like ignored or disregarded. I found this theory to have a lot of truth to it, but also feel that from my own personal experiences, it is a little severe. I think the idea that women are bilingual is very true. I know from personal experience that I have had to mold the ways that I communicate to the male people who are surrounding me. One specific example was when I took a gym class in high school where I was one of two girls. I was poked fun at in the beginning but then realised that they all messed around with each other and it was not a personal attack. After realising this both me and the other girl in the class just excepted it and joined in on there jokes. Kramarae also talks about different advances for women, her examples of "sub-version" made me think of the women's lit class that I took in high school. We had two guys out of about 35 in the class. After reading journals and biographies about women they both said they they enjoyed the class and learned a lot about women.

Chapter 34 Standpoint Theory

In chapter 34 Wood talks about the standpoints, she describes them in four different terms, viewpoint, perspective, outlook, and position. She talks about the idea that our standpoints are effected by the position that we as individuals hold on the social hierarchy. When I first read this chapter I found it a little hard to follow, but after discussing it in class I understand it more clearly. Wood's basic point is that when you are in a marginalized group you are less powerful therefore you are more objective. One example that comes to mind is when I was actually having a group discussion about feminism. I was the only girl in the group and we were discussing a case study that had to do with sexual harassment. The case was very unique and it was incredibly hard for me to get my point across to the other members in the group because they just could not understand where I was coming from. because they are not female there is just no way for them to ever fully understand where I was coming from. I feel like this is a strong example because it shows how marginalized groups are where they are.

Chapter 33 Genderlect Styles

I really enjoyed learning about this theory because I am currently taking gender and communication. It was nice to be able to relate what I am learning in that class to this theory, and it also helped me understand this theory better. Tannen talks about the difference between sex and gender, and relates these differences to communication. Men and women communicate in different ways however, women can develop more masculine ways of communicating, and men can develop more feminine ways of communicating. Tannen says that while men and women use different styles, neither one is better or worse than the other. While discussing this in class, I began to think of specific times where I have seen masculine and feminine ways of communication. I decided to watch CNN and observe the communication styles that the broadcasters where using. I observed a conversation that was going on between a male and a female reporter. As I listened, I noticed that the man had a very masculine way of communicating. He was very blunt and persuasive in the way that he talked. When I observed the women, she actually seemed to carry very similar traits. It was obvious that she was using a more masculine style of communication that almost mirrored him. I found this very interesting, and it made me wonder if this women communicated like this in her everyday life, or if she was only molding it so that she could maintain her part in the conversation. I think that this is a very interesting topic to look into, and I feel that there is so much involved in these different styles of communication.

Chapter 31 Face-Negotiation Theory

This theory is one that I found to be very interesting because it talks about different types of cultures and different ways of conflict management. I found it especially interesting because i was able to see what kind of conflict management styles i tend to use. Ting Toomy talk about "face" the image that we as individuals want people to see us as, and face management, the idea of keeping up with that image. She then talks about two different types of cultures, collectivistic and individualistic. I feel that many people may view these types of cultures as one being better than the other. I however, feel that they both are effective in their different ways. I tend to use this example a lot, but on my field hockey team we live in a collectivistic culture. We all have to make decisions for each other and need to think of our team as a whole and not just a bunch of individuals. I feel that this is important for any athletic team because if one person makes decisions only for the betterment of them self, than the whole team cannot continue as a whole. An example of an individualistic culture would be America. We are a country that allows people to think and act for themselves. People make decisions for themselves and for the betterment of their own lives. Along with this Toomy also talks about face management, the idea of keeping you self image up. When I think of this, the first thing that comes to my mind is when I came in to work late over the summer. I walked in and said that there had been a bad accident and traffic was horrible. By doing this, I am saving my face because I'm blaming my tardiness on traffic and not me.

Chapter 30 Anxiety Uncertainty Management Theory

This intercultural theory is one that I found to have a lot of truth to it. I have had a lot of experience being around people of other cultures and can relate to it. After our class discussion, I began to think of all the different people that I have met from other countries, and tried to think of times when I felt anxiety or uncertainty when meeting them. The one memory that stands out most in my mind is when I met one of my roommates, Charlotte, who was from Holland. I felt very uncertain about her culture and whether or not we would be able to get along because of the cultural differences. After getting to know her and learning more about each other's cultures, we became good friends and were able get by the culture barrier. I feel that this also relates back to the uncertainty reduction theory axiom that says that the more you disclose the less uncertainty you have. I definitely agree that this theory is very complex, I understand it in a broad spectrum, but have a hard time seeing the theory in every detail. I do however, find myself more conscientious of how competent I am. After learning about the four levels I am striving to be conscious and competent.

Chapter 29 Spiral of Silence

After discussing this theory in class, and really putting some thought into it, I began thinking of times when I either caught myself or someone else getting wrapped into the spiral of silence. I began thinking of the awkward middle school years when the social scene had a huge effect on one's life. There were numerous instances in middle school were there would be a certain person or group that would have an opinion about someone or something else, and I can remember going along with that because I was afraid to be singled out. Instead of voicing my own opinion I stayed quiet and went along with the rest of the group. By doing this I got caught up in the spiral of silence because I was afraid of being isolated. As time has past I have (for the most part) grown out of that because I have gained more confidence in myself. That goes along with the theory's 6 reasons for being more willing to speak out. Along with that you then have the vocal minority, the hard core, and the avaunt-garde. One example that first comes to mind when I think of the hard core is a man that is from my home town who you often time see walking around passing out fliers or holding up signs saying "the end is near", or asking questions of whether or not you have been saved. He is an example of the hard core group because he has already been isolated from everyone else, so he therefore has nothing to lose by doing this and expressing his views and opinions. When I think of the avaunt-garde I think of people like Melissa Etherage, who speaks out and writes music expressing her views on things like global warming, and even Pamela Anderson who is a spokeswomen for P.I.T.A. They are considered the avaunt-garde because they are speaking out for the better of our society and country, they are new age.

Chapter 28 Agenda-Setting Theory

After discussing McCombs and Shaw's theory on agenda setting in class it made me think a little differently about the news. Before learning about this theory I had always though that the news and media always covered stories on things on our society because they were the most important and the ones that needed to be addressed. After learning about the two levels of agenda setting that occurs with in the media, and the idea that the media tells us what to think ABOUT, my view on this has changed. Just the other night the news was covering the current story on Don Imus who was fired from CBS for making inappropriate racial comments on his talk show. The idea that the media is basically telling us to think about this issue never crossed my mind. Along with that In McCombs' first level of agenda setting he talks about the people who set the agendas foe the agenda setters. Looking back on this news story I can see how this specific station could have been told to broadcast this story because the person who owns the station could be connected to the station it occurred on, therefore being directly connected to it.

Chapter 27 Cultivation Theory

The cultivation theory takes a look at violence on television and give an explanation for how our culture perceives that violence and how it effects our lives and the way in which we view reality. After our discussion on class I decided to evaluate how much I watch television and really compare my thoughts to what Gerbner says in his theory. After doing this I also decided to talk with my roommates and ask them some of the questions we addressed in class. For example after asking them the question of what the likelihood of them being involved in a violence was, 2 of the 4 said that they had a 1 in 10 chance and the other two said a 1 in 1,000 chance. Because I live with them all I know how much television they watch a day and their answers directly reflected Gerbner's theory. The two who thought they had a low chance only watch about an hour of TV a day and the two who said they had a higher chance both always have their TVs on while they are in their rooms. After doing this I was able to see how TV really does effect our lives. However I am someone who falls into the middle grounds of TV watching so I am still somewhat sceptical of this theory.

Chapter 23 Dramatism

Chapter 23 talks about the basic idea that life is drama. When this theory was first explained to me I thought of my Art of Theatre class that I am currently taking. In that class we also talk about the idea that life is a drama in and of itself, and we are all the actors. In class we analyzed the 1984 apple commercial and compared it to this theory. After doing this I tried to think of other examples in my life that would show this theory. Burke talks about the idea of three interpretive lenses to help understand the drama, identification, dramatistic pentad and the guilt-redemption cycle. I found that the commercials for the U.S. Marines, provide a good example for this theory. The commercial connects with the audience first by relating it to them specifically, by showing a person that could be just like them. They then show this seemingly average person doing something extraordinary. This is the identification lens. They then bring in the dramatistic pentad by using the 5 different elements. The scene takes place both in the everyday life of this ordinary person, and then in the setting of the marine core on an obstacle course. The act is that average person going from his normal life to exciting and hard core the life of a marine. The agent is the man who is the "Average Joe". The agency is that man transforming himself from ordinary to extraordinary by becoming a Marine. The purpose of this commercial is to persuade and make people want to join the marine core.

Chapter 20 Cultural Approach to Organizations

The cultural approach looks at a long term observation of the culture and function of organizations. The idea that the organization is the center focus that is made up of many different pieces that come together to form it. This theory specifically goes in to talking about ethnography. The idea of studying something, like an organization, for a long period of time and eventually analyzing one's findings to then be able to give an in depth evaluation and description of that organization. When we talk about "organizations" it includes various different types of organizations. I specifically think of ones that I have been a part of like my field hockey team and my summer job working in event planning. With in these organizations we form a culture of our own. For example during the summers I work for an wedding and event designer. With in that job we have our own community and culture. Geertz describes these communities as having a number of different aspects those include things like rituals, stories, and metaphor es. Before every event we all sit down together and go over our check list and make sure that everything is in order for set up, this would be an example of a ritual that we have. Along with that we have special words or phrases that we use that would sound completely foreign to other people. We use these phrases to either disguise what we are really saying or just for fun. We also have tons of stories that we tell all the time about past weddings and events and about specific people at work.

Chapter 18 Adaptive Structuration Theory

The adaptive structuration theory is very difficult to grasp, but I found that once you understand it, it is very interesting and has a lot of truth to it. It is a very interesting way of looking at the way in which a group functions. I personally like this theory more than the functional perspective on group decision making theory in chapter 17 because it is less structured, while at the same time still being structured. An example from my life that best represents this theory would be my field hockey team. My team is a group of individuals set out to solve the "problem" of winning games. In order to win games we must come up with a way in which to do so. This is where adaptive structuration comes into play and the idea of production and reproduction. Everyday our coaches tell us what to do in practice and how to do it. by doing this they are producing methods in which we should use to win games. By following these methods we are then reproducing what they told us by using these methods. After that we then come to "Structure". We have rules that are given to us, for example, were are to be on time to practice, work hard, positive attitude and compete with each other. Because we all follow these rules according to Giddens, they count as rules. If only one or two of us followed them, they would not be considered rules. We then have resources, everyone on the team contributes something whether that be a certain talent, leadership, or athleticism, we all have something to bring to the table. Faithful and Ironic appropriation also play a major role. For example, our team adopted the idea that each year before our home games we would kiss our hands and hit our KENT STATE sign. We tried to incorporate in into our pre-game ritual but not everyone did it, and it didn't have the same meaning that it did before. This would be an example of ironic appropriation because even though we tried to adopt this tradition it wasn't practiced in the spirit that it was intended to be. Finally duality of structure comes into play. We practice everyday, we run, we lift weights, and we do team building activities that result in winning games. When we win games those games inspire us to work hard even more to continue to win more games. This shows Giddens idea that decisions are affected by the structure and structures are affected by the decisions and outcomes.

Chapter 17 Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making

The main idea of the theory of functional perspective on group decision making, is that we need to follow a specific outline in order to be successful in group decision making and that outline consists of four functions. Each function is very important but depending on the circumstances each function might have more of an importance than the other. While discussing this theory in class my first thought was of the group that I am in in my art of theatre class. We were given the assignment to create a production company and over the semester produce and perform one of the five plays that we've been studying. After solving our problem of what play it is that we will be doing, when and where we will be doing it, we are now in the stage of brainstorming and goal setting. As we were doing so one night, one of my group members kept getting side tracked, he continued to talk about how much work he had to do and what his plans were for the weekend. I found it incredibly hard to focus on our project and incredibly irritating. This would be an example of the disruptive role of communication. After he continued to talk one of my group members told him to stop and was able to help us re-group and continue our brainstorming. This person took the promotive role of communication by keeping us on track.

Chapter16 Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The cognitive dissonance theory is the idea that their is discomfort when our attitudes and behaviors do not match up. The theory goes into explain that the level of dissonance will always depend on how important the issue is and also depends how much of a difference their is between the attitude and behavior. When i think of this theory in terms of my own life, the first thing that comes to mind is when I get a bad grade on a paper or test, I talk myself into thinking that the test really wasn't that big of a deal, or the paper won't really effect my grade that much. By doing this I am trying to change my attitude towards the importance of the paper or test so that I feel somewhat better about the results. Another example of this that comes to mind that have a smaller level of dissonance would times when I would decide not to go out on a weekend and that weekend something fun or crazy would happen. I would then try and tell myself that it was better that I didn't go because I could have gotten into trouble or if I had gone that I would't of been ab;e to any work done the next day.

Chapter 15 Elaboration Likelyhood Model

In class we talked about how the Elaboration Likely hood model describes the idea that when we receive a message in two different ways and depending on which way we receive it will effect the change in the audience. The following night I was up late watching TV and an infomercial came on for space vacuum bags. I did use the example in class about the "magic bullet" infomercial, but after seeing that infomercial on TV that it really made me think of the Peripheral route. These Infomercials can be so persuasive in a way that they make you feel like you have to have the product that they are selling right that second. They say things like, "if you order in the next 5 minutes we'll take off a payment and add an extra space bag!!". After hearing something like that people tend to make their decision to buy that product before they even give themselves a chance to really think about what it is that they are buying and whether or not they should even buy it. After seeing that I tried to think of an example of something that would be just the opposite of that, something that would cause a person to go the central route. I thought of a high school senior making their decision on what college to go to. This decision is most commonly well thought out and involves a lot of careful thought, seeing as how this could effect the rest of their life. In class we also talked about the idea that peripheral cues can often times motivate someone to use central processing. An example of this that I thought of again was inspired from television. The "feed the children" foundation airs a commercial that shows hungry children from around the world that need our help. I think that often times people see those commercials and say that they are going to help and it makes people realise that the issue of hunger is out there. But typically after a few days or even hours those ideas and thoughts are lost.

Chapter 13 Constructivism

The constructivism theory talks about the idea that we all individually hold personal constructs that help us distinguish differences in people. In class we talked about how young children typically have the most simple constructs, and tend to categorize people in simple groups like old people and young people, or mean people and nice people. As we grow older we increase the amount of constructs that we categorize people in. So "the more personal construct-the more cognitively complex" we are. After reading the instructions in the book, I decided to do the Role Category Questionnaire. I found it very interesting to see how I look at people and have specific characteristics that I look for in people to separate them from others. I actually repeated the RCQ instructions for two different people to look for patterns in what I wrote. I definitely found similarities in the two. I found that I categorise the people that I cared for in categories such as loving, selfless, honest and caring. While I categorized people whom I did not care for in categories such as, selfish, ungrateful, and inconsiderate. I do however feel that after reading over my notes from class and doing the questionnaire, I have found this theory to be one of the more difficult theories to grasp on to. I'm not sure why, but I felt that I had to really focus more on the readings and class note to fully understand it.

Chapter 11 Relational Dialects

In the relational dialect, it is said that their are three "dialectical tensions" that cannot be gotten rid of. Of these three tensions there is both an external and internal side. After reviewing these in class, and talking about each individual tension, I began to think about what the dialectical tensions where in my relationships. I found that these tensions seem to always be the base of arguments in my relationships because they are simply something that will not go away. One specific example is that I am currently in a long distance relationship and because of that there are things that my boyfriend doesn't know about me that he would otherwise know if we where living very close to one another. These things being everyday activities, events or just small accomplishments through out the week. I feel that this is a great example of the expression-non expression dialect. I do not always tell him every detail of my day and of the things I do because their isn't a need to do so, and the same goes for him. However, if their is something that one of us doesn't tell one another about that we tell each other much later about, we both tend to get a little upset. With that said one can see that in the external part of this dialect, the balance between revelation and concealment is always an issue. A good example of the Integration-Separation dialect that I have seen would be in a the movie "The Break-up" with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. In the movie they constantly argue over the fact that he doesn't spend enough time helping her out around the house and with other aspect in their relationship. While on the other hand he thinks that he spends more than enough time helping her out. As the movie progresses this issue eventually becomes the downfall of their relationship. In this film Jennifer Aniston is internally seeking connectedness, while Vince Vaughn is internally seeking separateness.

Chapter 10 Social Information Processing Theory

The Social Processing Theory talks about the idea of forming relationships over the internet. In class we talked about starting a relationship in SIP and other aspects of it. After going home and thinking about the ideas of forming relationships over the internet, I have new feelings about it. For the longest time I always thought that online relationships were never really complete relationships, I always felt that in order for a relationship to be true it would need to eventually be a face-to-face relationship. However, after discusing this theory, learning more about what a relationship actually is, and hearing some examples in class, my feelings have some what changed. The example of the web site that offers one the opportuniy of having a cyber girlfriend may be a some what rediculous concept, but it does seem that by definition, it could actually be considered a relationship. I personaly have never had an online relationship before, aside from long distance friends who I stay in contact with throught the internet, which I guess, could be considered an online realtionship. Overall, I feel that after going over the three steps of how to start relationships and then looking at actual relationships that fit this, I am more convinced that it is possible to have a true online relationship.

Chapter 9 Uncertainty Reduction Theory

The uncertainty reduction theory is basically the idea that we as people are uncertain about people that we don't know and that as you get to know a person the uncertainly of that person will change. In class, we talked about the 8 axioms of the uncertainty reduction theory. Each axiom explains what happens when uncertainty is either raised or lowered. After going over each axiom I found myself disagreeing with some of them. One specific axiom that I strongly did not agree with was axiom 7. This axiom says that as uncertainty increases your like for that person decreases. I personaly, have had a few experiences where I thought that I really like a person but when I got to know them better and found out more about them, my liking for them decreased. I do however feel that in some cases this axiom can be held true, but I don't think that it has any significant truth to it. I felt that over all I agreed with most of these axioms but I do feel that there are exceptions to all of them. This theory also talks about ways of coping with uncertainty. Out of the examples given for this I found that I tend to use both the active and interactive methods of coping with uncertainty. When I am getting to know a person I definately try and find out information about them both through other people and from talking to them one on one.

Ch. 8 Social Penetration Theory

In the social penetration theory we talked about the idea of breadth and depth (the onion example). The idea that we disclose things to one another in steps and that as you disclose more your relationships grow (closer friends fill up more of the onion). In my own relationship experiences I think that this holds a lot of truth. However I feel that there are some exceptions. The social penetration theory talks about de-penetration. It says that it is a "gradual layer-by-layer with drawl". Meaning that the less time you see a person or the less you disclose to them, the layers will begin to fade away and the relationship will no longer be there. I think that in some instances this is true. However, for me personally, I have a friend from high school that I can go for long periods of time with out talking to, and still have a good relationship with her.

Ch. 6 Expectancy Violations Theory

After reading chapter 6 and discussing the expectancy violation theory in class, I was really surprised to find how well I could relate this theory to my life. I play field hockey for Kent State, so for the past three years that I have been here I have had quite a few teammates come from over seas. At many points through out each season I found that there were many differences in how we all go about our lives. One specific instance was at one point during my first year I had a teammate that would be very blunt in the way in which she would ask for things or make comments. At first, we all thought she was so rude but after a while realised that she wasn't intending to come across this way, it was just different in her culture. By acting this way she was violating our expectations. However, after realising why she acted this way we adapted to it. I feel that this represents the theory very well, and shows how one adapts and reacts to expectancy violations.